January 4, 2011

 

GrainCorp 2010-11 grain stocks hit about 11 million tonnes

 

 

Logistics provider GrainCorp Ltd. said Tuesday (Jan 4) it has now received 10.7 million tonnes of winter crop into its network, up 53% from seven million tonnes on December 20.

 

Flooding in Queensland state has now stopped all rail-based export cargo accumulation, GrainCorp said, while the building of export cargoes by road is also affected.

 

"Rail services aren't likely to resume for up to two weeks," GrainCorp said.

 

GrainCorp is the biggest provider of upcountry grain storage sites in the eastern states and also operates a string of coastal export terminals. With storage of 20 million tonnes it accounts for more than two-fifths of the total storage capacity in the eastern states, estimated at 47 million tonnes.

 

With a drought cutting grain production in Western Australia, most of the nation's exports of wheat and other grains this year will be sourced from the eastern states and South Australia, making reports of harvest progress critical to exporters and overseas buyers.

 

Australia, a major supplier to the global wheat trade, could be heading for a record 26.8 million tonnes of wheat production this crop year ending March 31, which would be up 22% on actual output last crop year, according to the government's chief commodity forecaster, the Australian bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

 

The annual harvest of winter grains, mostly wheat, is running about a month behind schedule in eastern Australia due to heavy rains as bumper crops ripened in November and December. This resulted in considerable quantities of wheat downgraded to feed grade and lower quality food grade from hard milling wheat, and barley to feed grade from malting grade, which has supported domestic and global cereal prices.

 

In northern New South Wales the harvest is 95% complete, while elsewhere in the state the harvest is about three quarters done.

 

In southern New South Wales many receival records for storage sites have been broken, as they have in the Mallee region, in the west of Victoria state, it reported.

 

GrainCorp said reports of some sites being full and of a lack of storage capacity in southeast Australia were incorrect.

 

The company has recommissioned silo, shed and bunker storage at numerous sites and constructed new bunker storage of more than one million tonnes of extra capacity in the region for the big harvest and increased number of grain segregations.

 

Variable grain quality this harvest has forced the company to provide more than 200 individual segregations for grain across the networks, according to the harvest report.